Ships Cats

[sidon55]

I see that there is a a display of photos about ships cats on the Belfast. Not been on a ship or boat with a cat but do recall that one submarine had a monkey while in Hong Kong. Also the 4th Submarine Squadron had their dog, a black Lab (Nigger) at HMAS Penguin. The submariners based in South Africa also had a dog.

 

[Deeps]

On REPULSE we had a snake , we he died we buried he at sea . He was put on one of the foreplanes and the coxn put on 15 degs so he rolled off into the sea at Faslane .

 

[sidon55]

The mind boggles, Deep. Wasn't a trouser snake, was it?

 

[function]

RFA Sir Bedivere 2002 - a rather mangy black cat got on board in Bahrain, made itself at home under the chacons on the upper deck, of course it didn't help that everyone was feeding it. Went to sea with the ship, visited the UAE and I believe ended up back in Bahrain less mangy, fatter and cleaner than when it left !

---

"Old buntings never die, they just get hauled down and stowed away"

 

[Strangely_Brown]

I have aways been intrigued by the story of "Simon", ships cat for HMS Amethyst who won the Dickin medal for bravery on the Yangzi.
Any Tars on this site who served with him?

ok ok I'll get me coat!

 

[Strangely_Brown]

And just a bit more about ships cats, I have just watched the program on BBC1 tonight where they found the resting place of the old Ark in the med, and took a handful of veterans back to see it on underwater surveillance cameras.
Apparently both ships cats (Oscar & Harry) were saved.

 

[hammockhead]

Apart from the parrot, are there any current ship's pets in the Fleet? It would be great to have more of them - is it still possible to have dogs and cats? I don't know how much cats would like the engine noises and gunnery practice, but they could probably handle the companionways better than dogs.

 

[andym]

The average Stokers Mess has thousands!

 

[MightyBigEgo]

The Royal Navy Training Team in Iraq on Telic 4, together with the Boat Troop RE rescued from the Royal Horse Artillery a bitch puppy. The engineers built her a kennel and we all took it in turns to feed, play and walk her. In fact most of my post for the second half of my tour was food and toys for the dog!!! In the end she wouldn't touch the dog food as she was used to cookhouse food.
The bitter blow was that the Brigade commander at the end of the tour ordered all base dogs with the exception of those whpo had got repreives for being in the papers, should be destroyed or abandoned.
We tried to get her jabbed up by local vets but to no avail. We couldn't shoot her, so reluctantly the RE took her to Basra Palace to "set her free". I have never seen grown men so distressed before. The Bde commander obviously destroyed so much morale with that order. For a picture of "Doggers" see the gallery.

 

[Chunky_Monkey]

Ref: the earlier comment about the Ark - our (unofficial) Wardroom mascot is my black cat, also called Oscar. It would therefore seem he comes from a long line of ships cats bearing the name "Oscar".....

 

[SailbadTheSinner]

When I was at PJHQ we used to run a sweepstake on how long it would be before an Army unit 'adopted ' a dog

I think the record was a week

Then the fun was how much hassle the dog would generate when the unit returned to the UK

The OT leaders used to say they spent more time on that than any other issue

 

[SailbadTheSinner]

Ref: the earlier comment about the Ark - our (unofficial) Wardroom mascot is my black cat, also called Oscar. It would therefore seem he comes from a long line of ships cats bearing the name "Oscar".....

Of course in the Andrew, Flag Oscar indicates man [cat?] overboard - some connection?